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Homes

Logs on lake: Couple builds dream home

The retired jewelers whose business started in Tampa carve out their little piece of heaven on Lake Thonotosassa.

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published January 27, 2006

THONOTOSASSA - Alvin and Brenda Magnon hang out in a state-of-the-art motor home surrounded by vegetable garden and fluffy white French dogs as they watch the construction of their three-story cypress log home.

It's not just any log home.

When it's finished, this 4,800-square-foot home, custom-built by Log Home Pioneers of Lake City, will feature wraparound porches and postcard views of Lake Thonotosassa, the largest lake in Hillsborough County and perhaps one of the loveliest in the state.

The five-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath log house will sport 17 doors and 1,000 square feet of deck, all intended to maximize the dramatic vistas of cattails, boats and dreamy blue water.

"Alvin loves living on the water and I love log homes," explains Brenda Magnon, 64, who says her soul is really in the American West.

Builder Tom Hendrickson says construction of the log house, which began last fall, will take at least a year. Hendrickson got into the log home building business in Florida three years ago after noticing a surprising demand. Hendrickson, who can build custom architectural log homes or log homes from kits, builds six to 10 log homes a year, mostly from pine, cedar and cypress. Building them is time consuming and labor intensive.

The Magnons chose to build theirs of cypress because it's naturally termite resistant. The logs are milled in Bronson near Gainesville.

"If you look at houses down the road that started after we did, they're a lot further along," Hendrickson says. "These houses take long because there's a lot of homeowner involvement, a lot of work. They're very custom."

Alvin, 78, and Brenda opted for wide-plank, antique-looking hardwood floors, stonework around the fireplace, granite and copper sinks, and an upstairs loft area that overlooks the cattails and fishing boats along Lake Thonotosassa.

"I think more people don't build them because they're intimidated by the idea of decorating them," Brenda says. "What they don't realize is that you can fill them with crystal chandeliers and Oriental rugs."

The Magnons are retired local jewelers whose family business dates to the early 20th century in Tampa (Alvin's father sold watches to workers in the cigar factories and phosphate mines).

They have lived virtually everywhere, from a penthouse on Clearwater Beach to a log home backing up to a state park in Pine, Ariz. Their motor home, which they've driven through every state and into Alaska, sports an interior as luxurious as any real home, with a built-in upholstered headboard, granite floors and a cupboard of Waterford stemmed crystal.

But their real passion was their beloved log house in Arizona. They sold it eight years ago after deciding they could just as easily build one in Florida.

"We were just looking for the perfect spot and this piece of land came available - a full acre," Brenda recalls. "And you could hardly see the water when you first stood in the back of the property. It was so overgrown with potato vines. We had to clear it out, but oh, we just love it. We love the view."

Brenda says their decision to sell their nearby house and temporarily live at the construction site in their 45-foot Newell motor home was absolutely the right one.

"It's so peaceful out here, seeing the wind surfers and feeling the breezes blowing over the water," she says. "And the moon at night, when it comes up over the lake, it's just beautiful, a true, natural part of Florida."

Brenda has collected Western furniture and accessories for years: six-shooter handles for the front door, old Indian rugs, copper mining pans to be used as sinks, a carved-boulder sink with a buffalo nickel stopper and 1940s ranch oak furniture upholstered in cowboy fabric.

"Honey, I've been collecting forever, you should see what I have," says Brenda, who sports a red Stetson hat, blue jeans and a black "Wild West" T-shirt for a photo. "The West is such a part of me. I think that I've lived there before, maybe as an Indian."

She also breeds rare Coton de Tulears, soft, long-haired little dogs that hail from the island of Madagascar and are favorites of movie stars and the rich and famous. Brenda's dogs, who take top honors in agility, confirmation and obedience at international dog shows, live in their own air-conditioned dog house that also doubles as an office (for people).

"They are very sweet and loving and there is nothing more beautiful than seeing these dogs in the wind - their fur looks like cotton. I adore it," she says.

During the day, the Magnons' puppies frolic in a small, neat pen next to the temporary patio the couple built next to their camper. Alvin has already started a vegetable and herb garden and is growing staghorn ferns.

He just laughs at the suggestion that he's really living the life most men crave.

"It's different out here - it's beautiful," Alvin says. "I'm getting my house on the water and Brenda's getting hers - a log cabin."

The couple met more than two decades ago after Alvin's wife died. While the wife was ill, "she picked me out for Alvin," recalls Brenda who worked as a jeweler in the company's Carrollwood store.

The couple dated for a week, and after a jazz concert on Clearwater Beach, Alvin proposed.

"He said, "I know your basic personality well enough. Let's just get married.' "

So they did.

The whirlwind courtship yielded many happy years. "He's funny and we have the best time," she said. "Both sets of children accepted us and it's been a wonderful life. If I knew I had to die tomorrow, I would go happy. I would say, "What else can I ask for?' "

When the log home is complete, Alvin will have his view and Brenda will have her little piece of the American West.

"We just want the kind of house where people can come over, get comfortable, have a glass of wine and look at the view," Brenda says. "The kind of house where people never want to leave, where they want to stay forever."

[Last modified January 26, 2006, 08:58:02]